Earth My Body - Sheet Music for Native American Flute

I was introduced to this chant by Wayne McCleskey at the Vashon Island flute gathering the Summer of 2002. The earliest mention of Earth My Body that I've found is from Julie Forest Middleton's 1998 book Songs for Earthlings, which cites it as a contemporary chant of unknown authorship ([Middleton 1998]). According to Ian Prattis in his 2011 collection, the words are “from an Earth chant sung by children, in countless languages, around the world” ([Prattis 2011]).

Lyrics

The English lyrics to the chant are:

Earth my body, Water my blood, Air my breath and Fire my spirit

And here are some tranaslations into various languages. Many are using Google Translate … if you are a native speaker of the language and have a better version, of if you would like to contribute a new language, please Contact Me.

Arabic (Google Translate):

                        جسدي الأرض والمياه دمي، والهواء والنار أنفاسي روحي

Chinese (Simplified) (Google Translate):

地球我的身体，我的血水，空气我的呼吸和火我的精神

French (Google Translate):

Terre de mon corps, mon sang de l'eau, l'air mon souffle et mon esprit d'incendie

Hebrew (Google Translate):

                        כדור הארץ הגוף שלי, הדם שלי מים, אוויר נשימה שלי אש רוחי

Japanese (Google Translate):

地球は私の精神を私の体、水私の血、空気私の息とを発射

Russian (Google Translate):

Земля мое тело, вода моя кровь, воздух дыхание моего и огня мой дух

Spanish (Google Translate):

Tierra mi cuerpo, agua mi sangre, la respiración de aire y fuego mi espíritu

The Melody and Performance Notes

There are many melodies that have been used for Earth My Body. The melody transcribed below is from Wayne McCleskey at the Vashon Island flute gathering the Summer of 2002.

Note that it uses an unusual note on the Native American flute: the “Fire” note can be fingered as , , or even depending on the particular flute you're playing.

Recordings

Here is a straight recording of the melody I made on December 2, 2011 on a low C# Native American flute by Brent Haines of Woodsounds Flutes. I'm playing both the low and the high versions of the melody twice, just as an example, the second time through uses a bit more ornamentation than the first time:

Sheet Music - Six-hole Pentatonic Minor Tuned Flutes

Earth My Body - Six-Hole Flutes - Pentatonic Minor Tuning

Sheet Music - Five-hole Pentatonic Minor Tuned Flutes

Earth My Body - Five-Hole Flutes - Pentatonic Minor Tuning